


Space Buzzfeed Unsolved

by Alienea



Series: I can’t believe you guys made a musical about my trauma [4]
Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Bugs, Cannibalism (Mentioned), Canon-Typical Violence, Lyf's shitty government, Multi, Spiders, thanks pleasekalemenow for beta services
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:28:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25480921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alienea/pseuds/Alienea
Summary: It had started with Jason, who had given Lyfrassir the list of conspiracy theories and made him realize that there was a fairly large community dedicated to unravelling what had happened to their star system.Lyfrassir finally sits down, watches Space Buzzfeed Unsolved, and ends up taking some bad advice and appearing on the show.They have a lot of regrets.
Relationships: Ivy Alexandria/Raphaella la Cognizi/Lyfrassir Edda/Marius von Raum, Lyfrassir Edda & Nyarlathotep, Lyfrassir Edda/Marius von Raum
Series: I can’t believe you guys made a musical about my trauma [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1661734
Comments: 18
Kudos: 194





	Space Buzzfeed Unsolved

“Brian.”

“Lyfrassir.”

“Brian, what setting were you on when you said I should secure an interview with Space Buzzfeed Unsolved?” Brian paused his drumming and looked up at the ceiling. “Brian. I know you remember.”

“EJM.”

“You fucker.”

“Well, to be fair, it was amusing.”

The video currently most circulated and hotly-debated on the galactic net was a banned topic of conversation on the Aurora. Lyfrassir had decided that he didn’t want to deal with it. So he didn’t. He blocked it. 

Blocking the video was the start of a very confusing few weeks for Lyf. Wherever they went, they saw threatening messages in the corner of the room spelled out in dead fly bodies. Interrogation of all the Mechanisms turned up nothing except a cryptic comment from Nastya, who said “oh, so you’ve angered them” and then refused to explain anything else. Lyf attempted to leave messages back in the webs, and learned absolutely nothing except that ‘flies will not wash away your transgression’.

Marius just shrugged and suggested chocolate-covered flies. The Crawling Chaos (who started answering to Nyarl when Jonny and Tim made a game out of making up new titles) started giggling and didn’t stop long enough to explain anything. Ashes just handed them a lighter. So no one was helpful, and the messages were getting even more threatening. Lyf had awoken to a scuttling noise in the corner of the room and a message saying that they had 3 days to unblock the video. Which at least told Lyf _what_ they had done, if not who was angry at him.

Given a deadline, Lyf decided it was time to bring out the big guns. So they asked Aurora. She also laughed, but handed him a printout that explained the intricacies of the galactic web, and specifically that the spiders that were responsible for maintaining her internally ran the galactic internet in their spare time, of which they had copious amounts once Nastya started taking on the larger jobs.

He attempted diplomacy with the spiders. The spiders were not interested in diplomacy, and were also not interested in Lyf compromising with him just blocking it for people onboard Aurora. Admittedly, they raised good points about the Aurora being the center of the galactic web, and so Lyf was blocking it everywhere, but dammit, Lyf felt justified. 

Not justified enough to ignore the threats. So he caved, and the video started getting shared. Lyfrassir dreaded the moment that the video hit Jason’s notifications, because they were going to get so many messages.

It had started with Brian. Well, it had started with Jason, who had given Lyfrassir the list of conspiracy theories and made him realize that there was a fairly large community dedicated to unravelling what had happened to their star system. Their theories were mostly shit, and if there was one thing that Lyfrassir enjoyed about being immortal and having mastered teleporting themself, it was that there was absolutely no reason not to go on record and correct the whole thing. What could any given annoyed government do, after all? If someone wanted to publish it that was their problem. And apparently they didn’t need to worry about secret dictators of the galactic internet, either, as long as they didn’t interfere with running it.

So it had started with Jason, and went onto Brian, and then Marius and Ashes had put the final nails in the coffin by helping him find the SBFU videos and watch the ones that pertained to them. They had made a party out of it, and there was something to be said for squashing onto a slightly-too-small couch with your partner and two other friends and eating a lot of popcorn while draped all over each other. Even if you knew that you were about to be made fun of at every opportunity, as Lyfrassir did.

There was less to be said for being ambushed by three thorns in their side, dragged to the on-ship theatre, and piled on top of so that they couldn’t escape (they could definitely escape but it was rude, probably, and they wouldn’t be able to without being more eldritch than they really wanted to be). The downsides of integrating into an incredibly mutable polycule included your boyfriend enlisting ‘my fellow prison mechs, Lyf! We have a group chat’ to trap them in the theatre.

“Au-rorrrr-aaaaa?” Marius sing-songs her name to the ceiling once more before a screen descends. “Aurora! We trapped Lyfrassir, and we want to watch the new Space Buzzfeed Unsolved video series. About them.”

**That was my condition, yes. I will let the spiders know to unblock it for everyone else :)**

“Dammit.” Raphaella laughs at Lyf.

“Sorry, Lyf. We do in fact know where the galactic web comes from. I’m sure Ivy could be more exact, but there was a very slim chance of escaping us ever seeing it.”

“3.4% chance that none of the crew would ever see the video. 10.8% chance that you would give in to Marius’s pleading and let him watch it first. 40% chance that Aurora would show Nastya first.”

**We were planning to do it tomorrow night. We wanted to wait for everything to finish uploading. I will accept Nastya not being the first onboard to see it for this, though.**

“Ah. Thank you, Aurora, I will work to improve my predictions. Do I need to continue, Lyfrassir?”

“No, Ivy, thank you. Can you move your knee, though? Digging into my side.” Ivy kindly moved her knee. “Thank you.”

“Wing okay?”

“Your wing is fine, and a very comfortable blanket, although this does leave me curious about where Marius is going to fit.” Raphaella shrugs. Marius, from his position at the space projector, makes an indignant noise.

“Raph! We agreed that I got closest cuddling rights!”

“We’ll rearrange when you get here! How are you fucking up the projector, Marius?”

“I don’t know! It’s yelling at me and I don’t think it’s actually connected to the web! I’m doing my best!”

Lyf opens an extra eye behind Marius.

“You need to change inputs. It’s set to a phone, and no one’s connected a phone. Change it to Aurora.”

“Thank you, Lyf.”

“Get down here so you can get cuddled as well.”

“Coming!”

Lyf closes the extra eye as Marius finally manages to get it working and grabs the remote.

“The cuddling is barely going to make up for all of you making fun of me. I want you all to know this.”

Lyfrassir is not dignified with a response from anyone as they rearrange themselves around him. So they just sulk, and remind themself that they knew this was going to happen eventually as the theatre darkens and the video starts.

• • •

“Today we have a special guest, which, uh, has never really happened here before.”

“What about the time you interviewed a cat that claimed it saw Space Mothman?”

“That’s not - no one can prove I did that. So, we’ve heard that you think there’s a lot of, uh-”

“Inaccuracies.”

“Yeah, inaccuracies in our videos, about you and about the Yggdrasil system.”

“Which is fair. He did suggest that a snake just swallowed it. Gulped it down like a smoothie.”

“Hey, there’s evidence for that theory. Look at this picture, dude, it’s a snake. It is so clearly a snake with its jaws wide open.”

“Yeah, snakes are going around eating all of our star systems, look out.”

“Well you thought that the most likely theory was that Lyfrassir Edda was a robot, and after seeing an actual robot man, he’s definitely not.”

“You thought they were a government experiment to create the perfect office worker.”

Lyfrassir watched the banter, uncertain if they were supposed to jump in, and if so, where. They were both off, now, and Lyf felt like maybe the two men had forgotten that this was a recorded video that was supposed to include Lyfrassir. Would it be rude to discreetly text someone and ask for their input? Maybe they should have mentioned that technically a snake did eat part of the Yggdrasil system.

“But we’re getting ahead of ourselves! Why don’t you go and introduce yourself.” The shorter one pointed at Lyfrassir.

“Ah. I’m Lyfrassir Edda, and I only found out recently that there were conspiracy theories about me.”

“Dude, people didn’t ask you about them?”

“Are you saying you’d- you’d go up to someone on the street and be like hey, so, I’ve got to know, where did the government make you?”

“I mean, maybe! It depends!”

“Depends on what, Ryan?”

“I don’t need to take this from a man who will eat a pickle floating in space ‘if it’s fresh’.”

“Did you want to... ask the questions now? How does this normally go?”

“See, this is why we don’t have guests.”

“Where did you put the list of questions?” 

Lyfrassir held up the sheet of paper he had been handed upon entering the studio. It was covered, front and back, with typed-up questions.

“You gave them to me? Which I thought was weird, but I figured the two of you had more experience with this.” Shane took it from Lyfrassir right before Ryan lunged for it.

“Wow, you put ‘please tell people to stop messaging us that we’ve doxxed you’ at the top? That’s not even a question.”

“Wait, people were doing what?”

“We, uh, kept on getting messages about how we shouldn’t doxx you because you’re a good neighbour and probably in witness protection. But, to be fair, we did check with about every witness protection agency we could find before publishing the video.”

“Could they actually tell us if we had doxxed him?”

“I ... don’t actually know.”

“Just a ‘whoops! Those men are about to doxx that dude! Nothing to do without confirming it!’ and then we get to publish anyway.”

“You didn’t doxx me! I was not in witness protection. I was, if anything, in the opposite of witness protection, given I wasn’t given a new identity despite being the last survivor of a star system.” Lyf squinted at the ceiling. “Actually, that seems like the sort of thing you’d want to do, that was an oversight, huh.”

“Uh, yeah, a pretty major one, dude. You’re telling me that Lyfrassir Edda isn’t actually just your new identity name you’re just used to?”

“It did feel a bit on the nose. Your last name translates to ‘really long story’, basically. In this language.”

“It what.”

“Yeah! So you can see why people could think that you were a robot!”

“He’s not a robot.”

“I’m just saying that all the wild theories maybe make a bit more sense to them now!”

“Oh, yeah, your last name is ‘really long story’, that’s all we need around here to decide you’re a space alien shrimp whose system got eaten by a snake.”

“Technically true?” Both heads whipped to Lyfrassir.

“Hah!”

“ _What._ ” 

Lyf leaned back in their chair a bit at the combined force of the gazes. Brian, who was remaining impassive behind the cameras, gave them a thumbs up. So this wasn’t something that other governments would try to kill people for talking about.

“Uh. Odin’s whole family’s deal was being tyrants, and a lot of them had ideas loosely based in science about how to improve people, and I recently discovered,” Lyfrassir heaved a sigh. Technically it was recently discovered if your eldritch cousin dropped that information into the conversation when you were just pondering out loud about why your eldritch form was a mantis shrimp. “That the genetic material they used was the mantis shrimp. So I am. Technically a space alien shrimp.”

“That’s - can we publish this? Technically? Are we going to get censored?” Brian shook his head in the background. Not that either of the two could see him. “Well, viewers, if you’re seeing this, we did. So. Shrimp. Shane, I realize we didn’t make a bet, but pay up.”

“I might have considered it if they were a robot, but no. Not for alien shrimp. What sort of benefits come with being an alien shrimp? Are normal shrimp your people? Could you lead a shrimp revolution?”

“I cannot talk to shrimp and in fact my only relationship with shrimp is finding them delicious. The benefits are that I have a better spine. Doctors have described it as intelligently designed.”

“What, no, I want that,” Ryan complained. “Human spines are horrible. I just want to not be in pain if I sit or stand all day.”

“I can also see more colors than everyone else, and there’s a few other physiological differences, but those are the ones that come up the most.” Or at least the ones that they were comfortable mentioning.

“What about the snake? Did a snake - shit, that’s kind of insensitive now that I asked if a snake gulped down your system like a slurpee.”

“You said smoothie.”

“Whatever. The beverage of your choice. The point is I probably should say sorry.”

“I regret agreeing to having a guest on this show.” 

“You’re the one that was excited to interview them.”

“This has already gone so far off the rails,” Ryan groaned.

“Do you ... want me to answer about the snake thing? I’ve had some decades to sit with it and process.” Not that I did, Lyfrassir adds in their own head, but I did kill Odin, “So I can answer questions.”

“I definitely want to know if I used the right adjective if you’re willing to tell us, yeah.”

“Less gulped down and more brought friends along? Odin-”

“Wait when people described her as like a snake they were being literal?”

“No, well, eventually? She turned into a snake. Because of the Bifrost. Which I am not going to go into detail about. The basics are that she got herself turned into a snake, and then sacrificed the whole star system to her new gods. Which I suppose is sort of like gulping. She’s dead now, though, if that helps.”

“Well, it is good to know we are not at risk at randomly getting eaten by a space snake.”

“Can you imagine? Like a weather report. Hey guys, today’s chance of random space snake attack is 10%, so watch out!”

“0%, she’s dead.”

“Okay, 0%, but still-” both of them turned to Lyf, who realized they’d just groaned. Lyf looked desperately at Brian. Brian was drinking the whiskey from his fridge leg. He’d said he was going to save that for after the interview. Lyfrassir felt a small moment of existential despair.

“Can we please move on from the death of my system? Maybe?”

“Oh yeah! Sorry. So, other conspiracy theories, we did actually send out a call for questions, and someone sent in-”

“Oh, is this the coffee question?”

“Yeah, they want to know how you haven’t died of liver failure. Since your coffee is apparently at least fifty times more powerful than a shot of espresso.”

“I’m not sure it’s actually fifty times stronger? I’d say a cup of my coffee is about, oh, I don’t know. Thousand seven hundred, thousand eight hundred milligrams of coffee? Apparently yours is a lot less.”

“Yeah! For one thing, it’s in the double digits, maybe the triple digits if you get it really strong!”

“Is that a lethal dose of caffeine?”

“I don’t know what a lethal dose of caffeine is!”

“Well, it’s not for me. I have a better liver. I can drink kerosene. I have, in fact, drunk kerosene. One of the Mechanisms moonlights as a bartender, and enjoys making flaming drinks that you drink while they are on fire. I can drink them without them being set on fire, and occasionally do.”

“ _Dude_ that is hardcore. I want to see how your liver works.” Lyfrassir shrugged.

“Does that mean you could just walk up to a car and go mm-mm,” Shane rubbed his belly, “I sure am thirsty, let’s get a drink, and just drink the fuel tank?”

“I would need to remove the fuel tank to do that, and that would get me _very_ drunk, but yes. As long as I was fine passing out and waking up with a horrendous headache.”

“How are they supposed to get the gas tank out of the car, Shane?”

“Just stick a straw down there and slurp it up!”

“I don’t think it’s a direct line from the entrance to the tank!”

“There could be! I don’t know why you’d make it like a silly straw that the fuel has to travel down to get its destination!”

“To prevent exactly what you’re saying!”

“Post-apocalypse games make you siphon gas all the time.”

“ _With a flexible hose!_ ”

“If I really wanted a gas tank I could just punch my way to it anyways.” Lyfrassir regretted opening his mouth the moment they did, but they really wanted the two of them to get back on topic.

“You could _what_!”

“Part of the mantis shrimp thing is that I can punch. Very well. Not as well as some people could, I’m honestly more towards the lower end since I haven’t been doing any physical training, but yes.”

“What, like right through a glass wall?”

“Yes. And metal. And concrete.” Ryan and Shane simultaneously make the motion to cut the film and run off, yelling about finding things for him to punch. Lyfrassir lets themself lie on the floor. The floor is cool, and isn’t vibrating with manic energy, and doesn’t get into arguments with another floor while leaving a third floor confused. Lyfrassir opens a third eye in the ceiling to watch what is going on, and sees and hears Brian kneel down next to them and gently pat their back.

Brian is very good at knowing how to be soothing. He doesn’t say anything. He also doesn’t offer Lyfrassir the whiskey.

“I think I deserve a drink. It won’t even get me drunk, Brian.”

“No drinking on air.”

“That’s not a rule.”

“It used to be. Public decency laws. Can’t show people drinking on air before a certain time slot.”

“This is a net video that people can watch at any time. Stop justifying this. At least give me the lemonade.” Brian pulls a bottle of lemonade out of his leg and hands it to Lyfrassir, who manifests a curly straw to drink it from.

“Thought you weren’t going to talk about making things appear from thin air?”

“That’s not talking about it, that’s just doing it because I don’t want to get up off the floor. The floor is my friend, and I will not abandon it in its time of need.” Lyfrassir took a sip.

“What is its need?”

“To be comforting in _my_ time of need, Brian.”

• • •

“So when they cut to intermission you were doing what?”

Lyfrassir groans into the phone.

“Jason, you can’t just keep on calling to ask what I was thinking. Please hold your questions until whenever you finish the video.”

“Did you not see? They got so much out of your interview they’re making a mini-series out of it. This one is ending with you punching things.” Jason says something Lyfrassir can’t hear, away from the phone. “Oh. Dave wants to say that this finally explains how you got from the hospital bed to a corner that quickly. And your muscle fibre density.”

“Well. There was never a good time to actually mention the punching thing without it feeling more like a threat, so.”

“Nah, he’s not upset, he’s just glad to have an explanation.” Jason mutters something away from the speaker again. “Wait, no, he’s upset because if you had ever come in having torn anything he wouldn’t have known how much of a pain in the ass it would be to operate versus immobilizing and hoping it would heal right.”

“Well I didn’t, so it wasn’t a problem!”

“Hmm, he’s still upset. Hey, you know what you should’ve mentioned? That Thor claimed to have invented the cheese slicer.”

Lyfrassir lets their embarrassed silence speak for them.

“Oh, so you did mention that.”

“Maybe. Yes. Maybe I did. It was an excellent segue into the difference between the internet outside and inside of Yggdrasil.”

“I’m sure it was.”

“I don’t have to take this.”

“Nope, you don’t!” Jason’s smile can practically be heard over the phone.

“I’m hanging up to go cuddle.”

“Sounds like a great plan, I’ll do the sa-”

Lyf hangs up. Ivy gently pats their head. She is the only person they respect right now, as well as being an excellent and comfortable place to lie down.

“Did you all make Jason wait so that I could experience this pain in real time on all sides?”

Ivy changes the subject.

“So, a series?”

“Apparently! I had no idea that it would even be that interesting. It’s just- life!” Ivy starts braiding their hair, and Lyf relaxes back down into the cuddle pile.

“Could’ve been worse,” Marius yawns into Lyf’s side. “Could’ve forgotten your phone?”

“Don’t even suggest that. Horrifying thought. How would I have gotten through that without phoning a friend?”

“Phase out of reality and leave?”

“That would’ve left Brian there.”

“He’s the pilot, Lyfrassir. He would’ve just flown back.”

“Point taken, Marius.”

Raphaella hums from her position on their other side.

“I wonder why you made the footage go weird a few times. If I make a compilation, will you let me know what you were feeling, at those points?”

“I’m fairly sure it will just be embarrassment, Raphaella. There was a lot of it. And confusion, but I don’t see why that would do anything to video footage.”

“I’d still like to check. For my records. And also because Aurora has been complaining that occasionally you fuzz things out, and I might be able to help Nastya fix it.”

“Hitting me in the desire to help my friends, are you?”

“She’s very devious, Lyfrassir. Stop moving your head.” Ivy puts her hands on either side of their head and holds them still. “You’re messing up the braid. I’m going to have to start again.”

“Sorry, Ivy.”

“Apologise by not flinching when those two idiots make you want to bury your head in your hands. Or at least manifest tentacles to do so instead.” Lyf almost nods, before remembering and giving Ivy a thumbs-up. “Thank you.”

“So what else’d you do? Besides freak out two poor SpaceTube personalities?”

“Got Brian to get some merch from their show while they were finding me things to punch.” Raphaella snorts.

“How’d they take that?”

“Mmmm, poorly. Well? With delight, but also horror because I got Brian to fill it with coffee and I demonstrated my ability to drink massive amounts of coffee.”

“Lyfrassir, please do not tell me that you drank-”

“I drank ten cups of coffee in about five minutes while being recorded.”

Being surrounded by your friends is nice. Being surrounded by your friends while they all laugh at you is less nice, and Lyf would leave in a huff if it weren’t for the combined force of Ivy, Marius, and Raphaella. Alas. They are weak to loving apologies and requests for them to stay and keep cuddling, especially when they have been coaxed into manifesting their tentacles to cuddle everyone with, and can thus feel the affection with which they are being teased.

Truly, to be Lyfrassir Edda is a life filled with hardship.

• • •

“So you... Didn’t use the web? At all?”

“Literally why would I create an online record of myself that could be used to determine what I would do and my likes, dislikes, etcetera? Not to mention the problems involved if I had wanted to look up anything and made people think I was looking into forbidden subjects.”

“Well, when you put it like that, the fact that people will come up to me on the street and say they enjoy my bridge would freak you out, huh?”

“You have a bridge?”

“Yeah, claimed it from the space goatman.”

“I maintain that the space goatman claimed it back.”

“He can have it back when he posts his own video claiming it, it’s mine. My bridge. I danced around on it and everything.”

“Maybe they don’t have a web connection in _Hell_ , Shane!”

“No, Hel had an internet connection for the guards.”

Shane and Ryan turned and looked at Lyfrassir.

“The penal colony? It was called Hel? H-e-l? A lot of the Midgardian Resistance were sent there? Horrible place, glad I was never stationed there.”

“Kind of disgusting of you to have been a cop.”

“ _Shane_.”

“No, I agree, but there’s not much you can do about your assigned job.” Lyfrassir shrugged. “At least it was transport police. We mostly dealt with the bribe system, and making sure that everyone smuggling had paid the appropriate bribes to the right people. Oh, and interceptions. Those were interesting. Honestly, though, it was a lot better than the normal police.”

“Sorry, you got assigned to jobs?”

“Yes? That’s how it is? You go through school, and obviously you can work at going into the area you want to go into, but sometimes instead of being an engineer you get slipped into Transport Police.” Lyfrassir shrugged. “I learned basic maintenance and schematics for a lot of transportation, though, so not a total loss.”

“Wow.”

“You all get to go through college before getting your assignments, right?”

“We actually make bad life choices ourselves! Sometimes based on whether or not we get accepted to a job!”

“What... wait, you pick and you don’t necessarily get it?”

“Nope! I mean, we don’t die. We have Space Galactic Basic Income. But it’s boring and you want to find something to do, mostly. We can’t all run podcasts, just most of us, and then people get bored and stop and decide to find something else they enjoy. Or they get hired at Space Buzzfeed and start a wildly successful SpaceTube series, but that’s an outlier.”

“We are in fact outliers, and should not be counted. Do not do this at home.”

“They can’t do this at home. We’re in a studio.”

“Don’t do a shittier version of this at home.”

“There we go.”

“So you both left the paper with questions-” Lyfrassir pulled it out of their reaches- “and I’ve decided I’m in control now.”

“Oh shit, this is why we’ve never had guests, they commit mutinies.”

“My show now, yes. Okay, so, first question, picking randomly: ‘What’s the weirdest thing that people won’t believe?’ Well, dear whoever asked this, Odin and Thor spent real money convincing people that Thor invented the cheese slicer, and I believed it. To be fair, literally the only source was propaganda, so it’s not like there was anything to tell me differently.”

“Seriously? The whole web?”

“Yeah, she scrubbed it pretty well.”

“Get out the bleach scrub! We gotta clean the whole web before we let it in boys, it’ll only take _the rest of your lives_ to get through half of it.”

“We didn’t even _have_ galactic web. It was just planetary and system.”

“Wow. Honestly, that’s one of the worst things I’ve heard from you that isn’t directly connected to a lot of death.”

“The galactic web not existing is what gets you. Not anything else.”

“Not anything else that doesn’t have a lot of death attached!”

“At least they had cheese.”

“No way can you ban cheese.”

“You can super easily ban cheese, just make it illegal.”

“I’m saying like, the knowledge of cheese. The knowledge of cheese would just reappear when someone fucked up with some milk.”

“Oh, because they’re going to think yeah! Let’s eat this fucked up solid milk! Not ‘whoops gotta throw that out now’.”

“Maybe! If they’re hungry!”

Lyfrassir looked down at the page of questions. This wasn’t going to get better. They could feel it, in their bones, and also in new eldritch instincts.

“Who on earth asked if Thor was hot?” Lyfrassir turned to the camera. Then they turned to a different camera, deciding it was a better full-on shot. “Viewer who asked that. First of all, I have no idea. I do not consider the aesthetics of someone who was involved in oppressing my system. Second, he was involved in the invasion and murder and subsequent oppression of multiple planets, so his vibes were so rancid that I can say with authority that no. He was not hot.”

Brian spoke up from beyond the cameras.

“Sort of, but only if you had a thing for older muscle-y guys. He would’ve been hotter if he wore anything but formal outfits.”

“You’re not being interviewed! This is my answer! And my answer is _no!_ ”

“Well! Let’s change the subject! We disregarded this question, but given you said you can punch through cars and did just punch through- well, a bunch of stuff-” Lyf looked down at the debris on the floor. He felt mildly bad for knowing that he wasn’t going to be cleaning it up. “In any case, is it true that you can boil water with a punch?”

“That’s true, yes. Kettles take so much time, and it took me a few weeks to realize that it wasn’t just a weird hygiene concern. I do, in fact, wash my hands before boiling water.”

“How- how did you find out? Who had to tell you?”

“My very long-suffering doctor, who caught me flicking my finger into my tea to warm it up again, and then had a minor freak-out. My doctor doesn’t want to be identified, so that’s all I’m saying.”

“I had not, until now, considered the fact you had to have a doctor.”

“Did you think they were just healthy for multiple decades? Never had anything go wrong? No annual checkup?”

“Well, you don’t think about other people’s doctor habits!”

“Oh, this is a better question. Was Sigyn hot? Yes. Yes, she was. Brian, don’t say anything. Sigyn was an amazing revolutionary, and I like to think that if she had survived she would’ve put a better government into place than what we got. Her vibes and her self were amazing. 10/10, was able to bear the burden of sacrificing the love of her life very slowly in order to buy more time for my whole civilization.”

“Okay. That’s a big review.”

“I just. Think she’s neat.”

“We can tell.”

“So the question that I have had. On my mind. Is it true that before you decided to join up with the Mechanisms, you let them steal your teeth and gold-plate them for currency?”

“What? No. The Toy Soldier carved wooden teeth. Also, I still have teeth. You can see them when I talk. Isn’t that sort of self-evident?”

“There was a theory that Yggdrasilians had shark teeth.”

“They’re clearly not pointy teeth either, Ryan.”

“You know what I mean! That thing where they just keep on growing teeth, for their whole life, so they shed a lot of teeth but also probably have some downside, I don’t know.”

“To get this back on track-”

“No, I want to hear about what Ryan thinks the downside of shark teeth are.”

“It’s probably a pain in the ass! They’ve gotta be making new bones all the time!”

“Teeth aren’t bones.”

“Do not tell me that.”

“They aren’t. No marrow. They don’t regenerate.”

“Mine do, actually.”

“No marrow!”

“How are you defining bones?”

“I don’t define bones. Doctors do. I merely pedantically apply it.”

Shane looked satisfied. Ryan looked tired. Lyfrassir just wanted another break.

“Well, however you’re defining teeth, my teeth do actually regenerate. I don’t get a new set. They just maintain better than yours, as long as I have enough calcium.”

“Right! Well, to end this segment, I think that I should get to pick a question.” Shane pulled out another print out.

“Are those the questions that I vetoed.”

“You seem to know what they are.”

“Don’t do this.”

“So, sent in by anonymous.”

“Please don’t.”

“Eyes emoji, were any of the prisoners sexy, eyes emoji, question mark. Now, I feel as though this question actually leads into several questions, for me, personally.” Ryan started hitting Shane with a rolled up piece of paper. “Prisoners? What prisoners? How does this anonymous questioner know about any prisoners? Why would these prisoners be sexy? Why is the person who introduced himself as Drumbot Brian leaving the studio, shaking with laughter? Why is Lyfrassir Edda flushed, and also looking somewhat murderous?”

“Marius Von Raum I realize that you are going to see this later. Much later. But please be aware. That when you least expect it. I am going to make you regret sending in this question.”

“Isn’t- to get us back somewhat on track- isn’t that, uh, the name of one of the Mechanisms?” Lyfrassir was about to speak when Shane broke in.

“You told me to memorize their names.”

“Well, did you?”

“Nope,” he popped the p, “seemed like a waste of time.”

“Then you don’t get to make fun of me.”

“So, one of the Mechanisms, probably, you think, sent in that question.”

Lyfrassir nodded.

“Definitely. Alexandria wouldn’t bother, and I’m not sure La Cognizi is aware I’m doing this. It could have been another Mechanism, but they’re less likely than the aforementioned two.”

“Wwwwhy?”

“Because Von Raum, Alexandria, and La Cognizi were the three that decided to spend 60 years in a jail cell ‘taking a fun break’ by ‘annoying police officers’.” Lyf was not above finger quotes. “And they’re not funny, and Von Raum in particular.”

• • •

“Lyfrassir. Love of my life. Big gay.”

“You’re not funny, and I’m not changing my mind.”

“None of us?”

“None of you.”

• • •

“So. In jail. Three prisoners. Who only reply to questions with singing?” Lyfrassir nodded. “And... playing musical instruments.” Lyfrassir nodded again. “You didn’t just confiscate them?”

“No, I did. They just kept on getting more. Later on I found out that apparently everyone was enjoying my rage at the eternal supply of instruments. There was, I am told, a line on the prison budget for violins.”

“Just violins? They only play violins?”

“No, but Von Raum was the one most likely to just start playing. Thus, the violins. Are there any more questions for me, or is this a good segue into the questions about the Mechanisms I’m sure you have?”

“One more! From more than a thousand people: Do you have tentacles?”

“You can’t just ask someone if they have tentacles, we agreed we weren’t going to ask that one!”

“I’m a wildcard and I already said it!”

“Look at them! They’re flushing! We’re going to have to cut this!”

“The people want to know!”

“The people don’t need to know!”

Lyfrassir was very glad that they were no longer manifesting tentacles when embarrassed. 

• • •

“So what did you say?”

“I said it depends on how you define tentacles and they both said that was a great time to just cut the video and move onto questions about all of you since they weren’t going to top that.”

Ivy starts giggling, which slightly reduces her effectiveness as a pillow.

“What?”

“99.9% of people would define tentacles as including your tentacles, Lyfrassir.”

“Well. I didn’t see any need to mention that. There need to still be mysteries out there. Otherwise the two of them wouldn’t be able to say that some things still remain Unsolved.”

Raphaella tosses popcorn into her mouth, and passes the bowl to Lyf.

“Jonny’s going to start teasing you about this. Soon. So be prepared for that.”

“And Brian,” Ivy chimes in, “although probably not Ashes.”

“Why not Ashes?”

“They already got it out of the way in the group chat a while back.”

Lyf takes out their phone and frowned down at it, scrolling back.

“I didn’t see any of that?”

“Oh,” Marius shrugs, “you can’t see message history before you join. It’s usually not a problem, for us, since it counts at first joining, not if you get booted and rejoin.”

“What the fuck?”

“I think Aurora did it on purpose?”

“Yeah, I asked her once. Apparently she didn’t want to encourage people backreading millennia of chat logs.” Raphaella nods with authority. “Ruined my spreadsheet ability, but I do have a nice predictive algorithm set up now, anyways.” 

“It sort of predicted your arrival, Lyfrassir.” Lyf raises an eyebrow.

“It did what?”

“Well.” Raphaella looks up at Lyf and smiles. “It said that Marius was due for drama. And what’s more dramatic than finding out someone you thought was dead is actually alive?”

“Hmmm. Finding a group of space pirates that you were certain you were never going to see again?”

“Finding a group of space pirates that you were certain you were never going to see again, and then going through your own personal apotheosis,” Ivy states. “Within a 5% variation, that is the most dramatic it gets.”

“So I have the record for drama on the Aurora?”

“In quality, if not quantity,” Ivy tells them.

“I don’t think I’ll try to catch up on quantity.”

“It’ll all average out, in time. And we have loads of it for your average drama and mischief to get within one standard deviation of all of ours-” Lyf covers Raphaella’s mouth with their hand.

“I don’t need to hear it.”

Raphaella tries licking their hand, but, sadly, they are immune to those tactics by this point. People that have lived for as long as the Mechanisms claimed shouldn’t still be so immature. Fuck, they are probably just doing it to see how long it takes for them to say something exactly like that. Lyfrassir resolves to never complain about their behavior. It would just be giving them what they wanted.

“So what sort of questions did they ask about us?”

“Oh, I imagine the questions you usually get.”

“We don’t really get questions,” Marius replies. “Just screaming! Or interrogation.”

“Yes, I do remember trying to interrogate the three of you.” 

Marius smiles dreamily. “I remember! You were the first person to actually be somewhat polite! And you were hot.” His eyes widen. “Are hot! Still hot! Hotter, now!”

“I understood, Marius. If I was technically polite it was because I assumed I was being sent in as a sacrificial offering and about to die. Which I think I actually mention in this video. It got remarkably into a weird rendition of Space How I Met Your Mother, but with a better ending. Also, a lot shorter, since I was mostly just complaining.”

“Then stop talking so we can watch the next part. Ivy, play with their hair. I will distract Marius.” Raphaella leans over and starts kissing Marius as the Aurora begins to play the next part of the video. On their other side, Raphaella drapes her wings over the group.

• • •

“So! The Mechanisms. Immortal cryptids that we have a whole other video series on- viewers, if you want to refresh yourself, we’re going to put a link somewhere.”

“Make sure you do. It gets wild. This man tries to convince everyone that the lead singer is secretly an obligate cannibal.”

“No, Jonny is not an obligate cannibal. I don’t think anyone could actually survive like that.”

“Hah!”

“He does eat people, though. Regrettably. I have asked him to never tell me about it. Ah, and Ashes O’Reilly gave me a statement to read, let me just pull it up.”

“They’re... the quartermaster, yes?” Ryan looked up from the list of names and functions that Lyfrassir had given them after seeing the original list.

“Yes. They want me to say, quote, while I appreciate the cults, I am the only one that gets to burn down whole planets, end quote. Which is also how I found out that they apparently have multiple cults dedicated to them!”

“You don’t watch our videos, do you.”

“I only just started using the galactic web. Give me time. So, that’s Ashes’ statement, there’s another one here from D’Ville, but I’m not going to read it.”

“Can you give us a hint, maybe?”

“He’s just trying to get his title corrected.”

“First mate?”

“Yes, that’s correct. Do not listen to anything that anyone might tell you otherwise.”

Brian, once again behind the cameras, nodded in approval.

“Who’s captain, then? The pilot?” Shane tilted his head towards Brian.

“No, there’s no real captain. It’s just not D’Ville. That’s all the statements I have, although I personally would like to say that you shouldn’t expect me to understand anything that they do. I’ve only been with the group for a month, and that is not enough time to begin to understand anything.”

Brian frowned.

“Alright, correction, it’s long enough to understand the kitchen rules and no one else has any excuse for breaking them.”

Brian smiled.

“So! There’s really, really shitty pics of some people that showed up during the Cole Rebellion however-the-fuck long ago-”

“We literally know how long ago. I wrote the date for you.”

“However-the-fuck long ago, and I have to say, this one dude does really look like Drumbot Brian over there.”

“Yes, that’s Brian.”

“Hah! See, they are immortal!”

“There’s no way they’re all immortal. I don’t care that most of them have mechanical body parts Ryan, there’s _no way_.”

“Oh, they are.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

Lyf shrugged at that. How do you respond, then? He was telling the truth.

“They’re all immortal. I heavily recommend that you don’t try to look deeper into that, by the way. The urban legends about what happens to people who get too inquisitive are probably true.”

“What about that one with- what’s his name, you always mention him-”

“Doctor Richard Pilchard?”

“Yeah, him.”

Brian groaned.

“I’m leaving if you’re talking about him.”

“Then leave, Brian.”

Lyf watched Brian walk out of the room.

“Right, now that he’s left- yes, there was someone named Doctor Pilchard who boarded the Aurora and attempted to derive the secrets of immortality. He died. Horribly. They still find bits of him, occasionally. I was there when they finally found his skull- there was a bit of a celebration.”

“Oh, well. Alright. What the fuck?”

“The man did do some fucked up shit to get aboard and then subdue the Mechanisms.”

“Yeah, you’d have to! Well! Alright! No more questions about immortality.” Shane shuffled through the paper. “Why are so many of these questions about immortality.”

“A lot of people had questions about their various theories on the Mechanisms, and a lot of those theories included immorality.”

“And you chose all of them? Why? Did you look at your future self and think ah, yeah, that bastard’s got it coming, I’m gonna stick it to him with this? Because you did.”

“I don’t think I thought it through that much.”

“Fine. I’m coming up with my own questions. What would you say is everyone’s favorite drink? Alcoholic or not.”

“Most of them barely practice self-care. If any of you end up watching this video: yes, this is a callout. Practice some fucking self-care and stop making me find you in the middle of turning into walking human jerky.”

“Have they... actually gotten that bad?”

“No. But they would if they could. I have started carrying water bottles just to chuck at them. So their favorite drink, as a group, is water that has been chucked at them at high velocity. Except for Ashes, who enjoys kerosene and any high-proof liquors.”

Ryan and Shane stared at them. Lyf assumed that this would probably mostly end up edited out after a few minutes of staring.

“So how did you end up meeting them?” Ryan’s voice had gone a bit strangled.

“Oh, hazing.” This did not clear up anything based on the expressions Lyf was seeing. “I was assigned to work as a transport officer and they hazed new recruits by sending them in to interrogate three of the Mechanisms. Which about ten percent of the time ended in death, but it didn’t appreciably change the death rate of transport officers, so that was fine and no one noticed. I ended up permanently assigned to them.” Lyf shrugged. “So I ended up talking to them a lot. Since they did a lot of crimes.”

“How many crimes can you _do_ in a jail cell?”

“Oh, they didn’t stay in the jail cell. They all broke out whenever they wanted.”

“So it was more like a hotel room.”

“Yeah.”

“A hotel room for maniacs.”

“Yeah, there was a stretch of time there where they were just breaking out to get snacks. Or to see what outlandish object they could smuggle into their jail cell this time.” Lyf sighed. “One time they smuggled in a whole dog. Which was hell on paperwork, we had to figure out if they’d stolen it, if they’d taken it from a shelter or a person or what, and then it turned out that they’d legally adopted it, which led to a bunch of legal complications which were honestly a pain in the ass to handle.”

“Yeah, I’d imagine!”

“One time Marius snuck in a pipe and literally piped a horde of rats into the cell. That was worse. He still won’t tell me how he did it, but I’m convinced it was a mix of some science by La Cognizi, the mysteriously malfunctioning rat traps filled with treats, and Alexandria suppressing all of my reports about the broken traps.” Lyf sighs. “So many reports. I just don’t know why specifically piping. He said something about a Pied Piper of Hamelin and I still don’t know what that means.”

“Isn’t that a really old fairy tale?”

“I don’t know! He won’t tell me! He just says it’s a mystery and then does the bit tune for that meme on whatever instrument is nearest. I am so tired of the it’s a mystery ghost song. He is infuriating and it’s almost impressive at how he manages to come up with new ways to be infuriating all the time. Yesterday he sprayed a whole hallway with mint just to hide a surprise 1 year anniversary party from me.”

Ryan broke in.

“So it sounds like you might have strong opinions on this question, also! From an anonymous submitter, we’ve got this- what Mechanism would you call the sexiest?”

Lyf turned to look at the cameras again.

“Marius, stop fishing for compliments.”

• • •

The screen pauses on the transition to Shane and Ryan talking without Lyf, and Marius turns and pouts at Lyf.

“Did you really end the interview because they asked my question?”

“You don’t need to have your ego inflated, Marius.” Lyf leans in and smooches him. “It’s very well inflated already.”

Marius grins and smooches back. 

“Afraid you’re still responsible for inflating it, Lyf.” Ivy stretches from her position. “With loving him, and being very open about it. More emotionally open than anyone in Aurora except for certain occasions. Usually things like me talking to Raphaella, although not other Raphaella, or Jonny and Brian, or Nastya and Aurora, and especially Tim and Ashes.”

“I can’t believe you like me less than real Raphaella.”

“You pretended to be Marius.”

The second Raphaella pouts.

“You pretended to be Marius badly.”

“I didn’t want to do it _well_ and end up having to explain later and have you all be paranoid that I could be doing it any time.” 

The first Raphaella snorts.

“Foolish, considering who we are. But noted.”

Lyf sighs.

“Why are you in the cuddle pile anyways, Nyarl?”

“Enjoying the chaos from this video being released all over and I thought your watch party would be very enjoyable.” She grins at Lyf. “I was right. I can go, though.”

Marius grumbles quietly into Lyf’s shoulder, and then pulls away to actually speak. 

“Can’t believe you took my place at concerts.”

“Are you ever going to get over that? It was two concerts.”

“He won’t,” Lyf tells her. “You will be dealing with that for ages. He still grumbles about the time I refused to show him pictures of my old cat.”

“She was _amazing_ and it was cruel and unusual punishment to not show me just because we had all broken out recently.”

“Marius is right, all courts in my databases would agree.” Ivy’s deadpan is fantastic. “Not sharing pet photos is illegal.”

“So yes, that’s what you can expect, Nyarl. Endless rounds of this.” The lights dim, and Lyf looks up at the ceiling. “Aurora?”

**Marius is falling asleep on your shoulder. You’re all taking a nap now.**

“I’m an eldritch god.”

**All of you :)**

Nyarl grumbles and settles into the cuddle pile as the pressure hoses come out threateningly. Marius just murmurs happily and tries to pull everyone in closer.

“Ah, fair. My spreadsheet does say that we’re about due for a group cuddle. Thank you, Marius, for keeping us on schedule.”

“Love you Raph, happy to help.” Raph leans over and kisses Marius.

“I know you are.”

**Go to sleep.**

Lyf doesn’t usually bother with sleep unless they’re cuddling any more, so. They wait until everyone but Nyarl is sleeping, and reach out and gently pat her on the back as she dissolves into a void shaped as human. _Thanks for not making Aurora pressure hose you._

Xe snort, quietly.

_I’m not going through that again unless it’s for a very good prank. Getting pressure hosed like that was bad._

_Shouldn’t’ve swapped Nastya’s organizational system around. Be smart next time._

_It was all still understandable!_

The pressure hoses lower from the ceiling again.

**At least pretend to sleep.**

Lyf closes their eyes and feigns sleep immediately. Presumably Nyarl does the same, as there’s noises of the hoses being put away.

Then Aurora very quietly turns on the video again and only sheer force of will prevents Lyf from groaning loud enough to wake everyone up.

Later on, there’s a final message in flies outside their door.

“Revenge finished. Do not mess with our web again.”

**Author's Note:**

> I return to my roots and post very late at night


End file.
